Last season's surge fuels Eagles' early success

PHILADELPHIA --- The season was over, and an era could have been too. That’s when the Eagles decided to try something else. That’s when they decided not to quit.

They won their last four 2011 games, not always against motivated competition, not always to the high entertainment of their owner, who would snarl that it was “fool’s gold.”

But they would win, nonetheless, earning a .500 record and leaving behind a mist of optimism. Their defense, inept earlier, was improving under trainee coordinator Juan Castillo. LeSean McCoy was continuing to bob to the top of his profession. Mostly, the Eagles were showing a trait, no matter how faint, that when given a chance, they would continue to try.

A season later, they are 3-1, with the three victories coming late in games. A determination to work late --- in a season, in a game --- is a learned habit. Connection?

“I’ve kind of stated this from the end of last season that I thought one of the positives that this team had going for them was they can maintain that attitude that they finished the season with,” Andy Reid said Monday, a short night after a 19-17 victory over the New York Giants. “We were lucky enough where we were able to maintain most of that football team personnel-wise and then add a few young guys in there. They were able to do that. That carried them over through the OTAs and brought them through a pretty tough training camp, and it’s helped them, I think, through the early part of this season.”

That’s not just how it seems. That’s how it is. Foolish as it once might have sounded, there is a tie, even if just a loose one, between the end of the 2011 season and its encore. The Eagles do not ever believe they are out of anything, and because of that approach, already are in nice NFC East shape.

“Honestly, this is how we like it,” DeSean Jackson said. “Coming down to last plays and last series, that’s usually when the best really comes out of us.”

The Eagles haven’t always been at their best this season. OK, they too often have been at their worst, bobbling the ball, leaving their quarterback unprotected, trailing late in games, bobbling the ball again. But they win, and not just with good fortune. They win by making courageous late-game drives, executing well and relying on the kind of quarterback that they’d lacked for the bulk of the Reid era.

“We’re talking about a great player here,” Reid said. “I want to make sure we understand that. He is a great player.”

Michael Vick is into Jeffrey Lurie’s pocket for 100 million --- or at least until the fine print is translated. So the franchise had an idea of what he could provide. But it’s not just Vick who is defining the Eagles. It’s the professionalism that DeMeco Ryans has added to the back of the defensive line. It is Jackson and McCoy, each into his career prime. It is Castillo having settled as a defensive coordinator. There might even be some laws of average at work, for maybe the Eagles really weren’t as bad as their early 2011 record hinted.

“The guys are battling,” Reid said. “I like the personality of the team and I like the grit. They are willing to fight.”

That’s said around all teams, sometimes for motivation, too rarely as an accurate observation. But these Eagles have a searing competitive drive.

“Every game is not going to be perfect and it’s not going to always be a situation where things come easy,” Vick said. “We struggled in the beginning but we really challenged one another to get better throughout the course of the game. I’m extremely proud of those guys that did that.”

The Eagles are thriving at the end of games that easily could be lost.

It’s their reward for striving at the end of a season that seemed so lost, too.